The Morning After
by Rietta
Summary: Life on Earth can be an adventure... And life as we know it can change in the space of a night. Four people ponder on a life-changing event.


**Disclaimer- Unfortunately, I'm not lucky enough to own 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' or any of its characters or episodes. I doubt I would be sat here writing if I did. **

**Spoilers- Pilot/Series 1 episode 1: 'Invasion of the Bane'**

**Rating- K**

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**The Morning After**

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Sunlight filtered across the ceiling; just a thin line let in through the slightest gap between deep blue curtains. The dancing rays woke the boy in the bed, and he sat up and looked around in confusion. Where was he? No, _who_ was he? Then, as if a fading echo of a dream, he thought he caught a whisper in the air- a strangely familiar voice murmuring: 'Look, Geppetto, I'm a real live boy!' Suddenly it all came flooding back to him. He was the archetype, created by the Bane, and yesterday he had saved the world. But today? Today was even better. Today he had a home, and a mother, and the adventure of a normal life waiting for him. Today, he was Luke Smith. And that felt good.

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Sunlight filtered across the room, a stray ray of brightest glancing in the eye of the occupant of the double bed, causing her to stir. Sleepily Sarah Jane Smith opened one eye and stared at the alarm clock on the bedside table. A quarter to seven. What had awakened her this early? Her subconscious informed her it was the sunlight, and yet something felt so different about today. Something felt _special_. She sat up and leaned against her pillows, realising that she wasn't going to be getting any more sleep that night. And that's when it hit her and she recalled with a thrill what the difference was. She was a mother! Yesterday she'd met the people who'd just moved in over the road and helped to blow up a pop factory, saving the world in the process. Then she'd strolled home, had her sentient super-computer rustle up a few forged papers, and adopted the archetypal human created by the Bane. All in a days' work for Sarah Jane Smith, investigative journalist and closet alien expert. But today was different. Today she was a mother, she had a 'fourteen-year-old' son (even if technically he was only twenty-four hours old...) Motherhood would be a greater adventure than travelling with the Doctor or saving the world had ever been. And she was looking forward to every moment...

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Sunlight filtered across the room- hardly surprising since the blinds weren't exactly in mint condition. But that was the trouble with new houses, Maria Jackson had reflected as she had wrestled to shut the blinds two nights ago. This was the second morning in her new house, and this time when the sunlight woke her at three minutes past seven, she knew exactly where she was. And it was a good feeling. She'd had a pretty good dream too. She'd dreamt that the frosty journalist over the road- Sarah Jane Smith, that was it!- had unthawed considerably; and together they'd had an adventure. Something involving aliens trying to take over the planet by feeding everyone drinks with a bit of living alien inside them. She and Sarah Jane had also met a boy created by the aliens- the archetypal human, or something like that; a boy constructed from information retrieved from scans of ten thousand people. The adventure had culminated in the three of them using an alien device to aggravate the biggest alien into exploding, blowing up the pop factory in the process. Oh yes, it had been a good dream! And yet somehow, Maria had the strangest feeling that in actual fact, it hadn't been a dream at all. Swinging her legs out of bed and hunting around for some clothes, the teenager wondered if seven fifteen was too early to go calling on the neighbours...

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Sunlight filtered across the city of Cardiff, and from the roof of the Millennium Centre Captain Jack Harkness watched the city wake up. There was no waking up to be done himself- he rarely slept. And last night he'd been caught up in reading a particularly interesting report that had landed in his inbox late last night: the conclusions of one of UNIT's senior London-based officers, Major Claude Merrill, concerning the suspicious explosion of the Bubbleshock factory following strange behaviour from 98% of the UK population. Jack and his Torchwood team hadn't been slow to note the change in the majority of Cardiff's citizens- it had been quite surreal to be chased around the hub by Gwen as she intoned repeatedly: 'drink it!' Fortunately, the other four team members had been able to sedate her and pop her into one of the vaults for safety, something at which she had been both angry and ashamed upon being restored to normal. The Torchwood Three team had worked out that there had been alien involvement in the sudden change- something not unlike blood control, Jack had concluded- but unfortunately, since all the specimens were living there hadn't been anyone for Owen to dissect in order to give the team further information. They had been forced to wait for something- anything!- to happen to change the situation.

According to Merrill's report, and indeed all the news reports, that something had been the explosion of the Bubbleshock factory in London. Nothing odd about that, one would think... Except that it hadn't been UNIT blowing up the factory- they'd been too busy trying to figure out what the do with their own Bubbleshock victims. No, the truly interesting part of Merrill's email had read: 'It would seem that on this occasion we were saved by the initiative of a UNIT ex-employee, one Sarah Jane Smith, who appears to be a freelance alien investigator as well as a journalist. Perhaps you should follow her career, Captain Harkness. It might teach you a thing or two...' Despite making him bristle, Merrill's last comment had intrigued Jack. He'd never encountered this 'Sarah Jane Smith' before, but he certainly liked what he read. The Major might even be right- Jack would certainly be following Smith's 'career' from now on...


End file.
